Answer Key
Chart 3.1 The International Phonetic Alphabet
Source: IPA Chart, http:// www .internationalphoneticassociation .org /content /ipa -chart, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License. Copyright © 2015 International Phonetic Association.
and “points of articulation” are given on the horizontal axis. The white cells are important phoneme sounds used in English (we will define phoneme momentarily), the dark- gray cells are sounds that are commonly used in English but not phonemic, and the light- gray cells are consonants found in other languages but not used in English. Table 3.5 provides examples of these sounds that are used in English (for each symbol, examples are given for that sound as it appears at the beginning, the middle, or the end of a word).
Figure 3.2 is a chart of English vowels using the American System (as opposed to the many possible vowels found in the world’s languages as described in Table 3.1, and using the International Phonetic Alphabet). Basically, you may visualize this diagram as the in- terior “mouth” part of the cutaway face in Figure 3.1 (the “oral cavity,” O, in the picture).
Each cell represents a rough place the tongue can go when it makes a vowel. For example, if air is pushed out when the tongue is toward the front of the mouth and relatively high, the i- sound is made. A bit lower, the e- sound is made, and so on. Diphthongs in English are shown in the American System in Figure 3.3.
Diphthongs are handled more elegantly in the American System than in the IPA. As noted, a diphthong is a change in vowel quality within the same syllable. Basically, in the American System, if a syllable proceeds higher and toward the front of the mouth, this is indicated by adding the symbol [-y] to the vowel. For instance, if a high front vowel [i]—as in bit—moves higher and more forward—as in beat—this is depicted as [-iy]. If a syllable proceeds higher and toward the back of the mouth, this is indicated by adding the symbol [-w] to the vowel. For instance, if a central back vowel [o]—as in home—moves higher—as in hoi polloi—this is depicted as [-oy].
Other Approaches to Phonology
There are generally three ways to approach phonology. Articulatory phonetics—which we have just been discussing—is the study of the production of speech sounds by the vocal organs. But is not the only way to examine the raw material of language. It is also possible to examine speech sounds for their physical properties, that is, from the perspective of acoustic phonetics. This approach requires the sound spectrograph, a device that visually represents acoustic features of speech sounds in the form of spectrograms, or voiceprints.
Spectrograms show three dimensions of sounds: Duration (time) is displayed horizontally, frequency vertically, and intensity by the degree of darkness. For example, each vowel is characterized by several resonance bands, referred to as formants, which represent the overtone structure of a vowel produced by the shape of the vocal tract. Because the position of the tongue changes with the production of different vowels, the formants vary corre- spondingly. Finally, auditory phonetics is the study of how speech sounds are perceived and interpreted by the various organs of the human body (ear, auditory nerves, and brain).
We will focus on articulatory phonetics here, leaving the other two areas to physicists, neurologists, speech therapists, and other specialists.
FROM PHONES TO PHONEMES Phones: The Smallest Unit of Sound
The smallest perceptible discrete segment of speech is a phone, a speech sound considered a physical event. A succession of phones in a particular language makes up a stretch of
49
Table 3.4 Chart of the Most Important Manners of Articulation (Vertical Axis) and Points of Articulation (horizontal axis) of selected consonants Note: white cells = phonemes used in English; dark gray cells = sounds common in English but not phonemic; light gray cells = not in English
Table 3.4. Chart of the Most Important Manners of Articulation (Vertical Axis) and Points of Articulation (horizontal axis) BilabialLabio- dentalDentalAlveolar Alveo- palatalVelar UvularGlottal STOPS voiced b d g unvoicedp t k q ʔ AFFRICATES (groove)voiced ᴣǰ unvoiced c č AFFRICATES(lateral)voiced λ unvoiced ƛ FRICATIVES voiced βv ðz žg unvoiced f f θs šx h NASALS voiced mn ñŋ unvoiced LATERALSvoiced l r unvoiced ɫ SEMI-VOWELS voiced w(r)y (w) Note: white cells = phonemes used in English; dark gray cells = sounds common in English but not phonemic; light gray cells = not in English
Table 3.5 The Consonant Phonemes in American English
Table 3.5. The Consonant Phonemes in American English
Symbol Examples
Initial Medial Final
/p/ pit supper rip
/b/ bit fiber rib
/t/ tip meaty kit
/d/ dip odor kid
/k/ cap locker pick
/g/ gap soggy pig
/č/ chin itchy rich
/ǰ/ gin pudgy ridge
/f/ fat gopher belief
/v/ vat ivy believe
/θ/ thin ether breath
/ð/ then either breathe
/s/ seal icy hiss
/z/ zeal cozy his
/š/ show potion rush
/ž/ — leisure rouge
/h/ hasp ahoy —
/m/ moon simmer loom
/n/ noon sinner loon
/ŋ/ — singer king
/l/ limb miller reel
/r/ rim mirror rear
/w/ wet lower —
/y/ yet layer —
/c/ Tsar pretzel its
/Ʒ/ — — ids, arachnids
Note: Some other sounds that are common in English, but not phonemic:
[q] car incarnate —
[ñ] nyuck! nyuck! señor —
[ʔ] — Oh’ oh! —
From Phones to Phonemes 51
speech, or an utterance. Each utterance is unique, occurring if not under different circum- stances at least at a different time. Yet people do not respond to each instance of speech as though it were different from all others. Such utterances as “Where have you been?” or “I have no time just now” are treated as if they were much the same every time they are said, regardless of whether the voice belongs to a woman, man, or child, or happens to be clear or hoarse. Because there is so much likeness in what is objectively different, it is possible to represent speech sounds—phones—through the written symbols of a suitable phonetic alphabet. Linguistic anthropologists make phonetic transcriptions of words or utterances whenever they wish to obtain a sample of speech for subsequent analysis.
Let us now consider the English words written as papaya, pepper, pin, spin, up, and upon. The p sound of pin is followed by a distinct puff of air, which is completely absent in spin. The difference between the two p sounds can be easily demonstrated if one holds a sheet of paper vertically between thumb and finger about two inches from one’s lips and says the two words. The puff of air, or aspiration, following the p sound of pin sends a rip- ple through the sheet, whereas the word spin leaves the sheet motionless. We find that the same difference obtains between the p’s of pair, peck, peer, and pike, on the one hand, and those of spare, speck, spear, and spike, on the other.
In the word upon, the p sound is about as distinctly aspirated as in pin. In papaya, how- ever, it is only the second p that is strongly aspirated, the first one aspirated only slightly, if at all; in pepper, it is the other way around. In the word up, especially if it stands at the end of a sentence, as in “Let’s go up!” the p sound may remain unreleased; that is, the lips simply stay closed in anticipation of the silence that follows.
FIGURE 3.2. An English Vowel Chart Based on the American System
ɨ
ə o
æ a ɔ
i ɨ
e ə
æ ɔ
To generalize about the occurrence of these phonetically similar segments, we may say that in English there are at least four varieties of the p sound: (1) an aspirated p (which we will write as [ph]) before a stressed vowel unless preceded by an s (such as the second p in papaya, the first in pepper, and in pin and upon); (2) a very slightly aspirated [p] before a weakly stressed vowel (the first in papaya, the second in pepper); (3) an unaspirated p (which we will write as [P]) with a relatively small degree of muscular effort and breath force, after an s of the same syllable and before a vowel (spin); and (4) an unreleased p (which we will write as[p˺]) in the sentence- final position, where [ph] or [p] may also occur. (To illustrate a principle rather than account for numerous other details, the de- scription of the varieties of the English p sound and their occurrence has been simplified.) Let us next consider the words pin, spin, and bin, which we may transcribe phonetically as [phin], [sPin], and [bin]. The difference between the p of pin and b of bin is clearly of an- other kind than that between [ph] and [p] or [ph] and [P]. By choosing either b or p for the FIGURE 3.3. A Chart of Common Diphthongs (American System)
ɔw ɔy ɔ
ɔ ɔ ɔ Note: The common diphthongs in midwestern American English are:
From Phones to Phonemes 53
initial sound, the speaker is distinguishing between two meaningful items of the English vocabulary, bin and pin. Even if one were to interchange the pronunciation of the p sounds in pin and spin and say [Pin] and [sphin] instead, one would no doubt be understood, though the listener would probably suspect that either English is not the speaker’s native language or the speaker is trying to imitate a foreign accent. As a matter of fact, native speakers of English never have to choose consciously between [P] and [ph]. They employ automatically the former before a vowel whenever the sound s precedes within the same syllable, and the latter if it occurs before a strongly stressed vowel.
Phonemes: The Smallest Group of Sounds That Have Psychological Reality With specific reference to English—because all languages must be examined and analyzed only on their own terms—linguists establish the b sound of bin and the p sound of pin as two contrastive sound units, or phonemes. That is, b- sounds versus p- sounds are “differ- ences that make a difference,” as the words bin and pin with different meanings demon- strate. However, if I use any of the variety of p- sounds in a certain word, it might not be a difference that makes a difference. For example, I may say the word Stop! while agitated—
and not expelling a puff of air at the end, sucking in the sound in my excitement (i.e., using [p˺]). At other times I may say the word stop while disgusted (“Oh, just stop”) with a puff of air being expelled (i.e., [ph]). Chances are that only I, and no one else, will even notice that I have technically pronounced stop in two different ways.
The several varieties of the p sound—[ph], [P], [p], and [p˺]—are called allophones—or variants—of the phoneme /p/. (Note the use of slant lines around the symbol to indicate its phonemic status.) To put it differently, when p is used to represent the English phoneme /p/, it serves as a cover symbol for a group or class of phonetically similar sounds that are in complementary distribution or free variation. Phones are in complementary distribution if they never occur in the same phonetic environment—for example, simplified, [P] is found always after s, where [ph] never occurs. Phones are in free variation if substituting one for another does not cause a change in meaning. But if two phones contrast, as does [b] in bin with [ph] in pin—that is, if substituting one for another causes a change in meaning—they are assignable to two different phonemes (or, phrased differently, they are allophones of two different phonemes).
The simplest way to establish phonemic contrasts in a language is by means of minimal sets, in which each word has a different meaning but varies from the rest in one sound only. From the foursome of words bit, bet, bat, and butt, we establish phonemic contrast among all four vowels. As for consonants, all the initial sounds (not letters!) of the follow- ing set of words contrast with one another and are therefore assignable to different English phonemes: by, die, fie, guy, high, lie, my, nigh, pie, rye, shy, sigh, thigh, thy, tie, vie, and why, yielding /b, d, f, g, h, l, m, n, p, r, s, š, θ, ð, t, v, w/.
To demonstrate the fundamental principles underlying phonemic analysis, we have, for obvious reasons, used English. But linguistic anthropologists typically face a different situation when they study peoples whose languages have never before been written. A thorough phonemic analysis of a language involves more than just compiling minimal sets; it takes weeks of painstaking listening for contrasting sounds, repeating words and utterances and recording them on tape, and phonetically transcribing a good deal in the initial stages of work. The following need to be established: the distinctive sounds, or
phonemes, of a language; the prosodic features that characterize its utterances; the main allophones of each phoneme and the phonetic environment in which they occur; the pattern of phonemes—vowels, consonants, and their subclasses; and the rules for their combinations among each other and in higher- level units. Next, the practical task for the linguistic anthropologist is to devise an appropriate alphabet so that the language can be transcribed phonemically, without the many phonetic details of the initial transcription that have now become easily retrievable: when we write /p/ in English, we know under what circumstances this phoneme is physically realized as one of its four allophones, [ph], [p], [P], and [p˺].
It is important to remember that the same phonemes do not necessarily characterize every speaker of English. It is common knowledge that British, Australian, and other forms of English differ from American English, and that each of these exists in several dialectal varieties, particularly as far as vowels are concerned. In general, though, each language contains its own particular overall system of distinctive sounds. In Spanish, for example, a certain vowel sound approximates that heard in the English word beat, but there is no Spanish parallel to the English vowel sound of bit. This and similar differences are the source of the “natural” mispronunciations of native speakers of Spanish learning English, such as when they pronounce the word mill as though it were meal. Their Spanish speech habits carry over into a language they are learning or are not familiar with.
The study of the sound systems of languages—and of the sound changes that take place over time in a language or in several related languages—is called phonology, and the study of determining the phonemes of languages is called phonemics. Both are complex subdis- ciplines in their own right, each with its own set of books, techniques, and specialists. We will not get too detailed about these things here, but every linguistic anthropology student should understand the concept of phonemes and how to start finding and analyzing them (at least in theory, in general terms). A brief summary of how one might begin to do a phonemic analysis is given in the Resource Manual and Study Guide at the end of this chapter. This should help get students started when trying to do the problems found there.
As we will see later in this chapter, this notion of “differences that make a difference versus differences that do not make a difference”—the key notion behind the phoneme—is an important aspect of cultural knowledge and categorization.
And one more remark about writing—this time about developing a writing system for languages that are spoken but not written, which means primarily for languages of small tribal societies. Today most members of such societies inevitably also speak the language of the larger society that surrounds them, and many are no longer sufficiently proficient in their native language to speak it. One may ask, Why give a written form to a language that is destined to become extinct in a generation or two? One reason would be to enable the linguistic anthropologist (or linguist) to record the society’s tales, prayers, ritual speeches, and everyday language in the original form while it is still possible. But then, too, the avail- ability of a written form helps to bolster the viability of a threatened language by giving it prestige in the outside world. It may be possible, for example, to include lessons in the native language in the elementary school system serving the group. One of the authors of this text (Salzmann), for example, compiled in 1983 a Dictionary of Contemporary Arapaho Usage to help Arapaho teachers remember and use the language of their grandparents.
But then a problem arose—namely, how to represent some of the sounds of the language,
Prosodic Features 55
which in linguistic literature would be done by means of phonetic symbols. (To use English spelling would be very confusing, for reasons explained elsewhere in this book.) Here the advice of informants could be very valuable. An example: one of Salzmann’s informants suggested that the sound usually represented by the Greek letter theta, that is by θ, could be represented by a graphic symbol found on the keyboard of American typewriters, thereby enabling a teacher to type Arapaho lessons for students. This same informant suggested using the numeric symbol 3 because the English word three begins with this particular sound (written in English as th). Salzmann accepted this practical and ingenious sugges- tion, and so the Arapaho word for dog in the dictionary is written as he3 rather than pho- netically (phonemically) as hɛθ.
Phonemes of English
The list of consonant phonemes in American English is shown in Table 3.5 (whenever possible, the occurrence of each phoneme is exemplified for the word- initial, word- medial, and word- final positions). The dialects of English vary somewhat with respect to vowels, even within the United States. The repertory of typical vowel phonemes is shown in Figure 3.2 (nine “plain vowels) and Figure 3.3 (fourteen diphthongs). These charts are represen- tative of a great many speakers of American English, though not all.
How does the phonemic system of English compare with the systems of other lan- guages? In the number of segments, it belongs to the middle range, along with the large majority of the world’s languages. According to a survey based on the phonemic invento- ries of a sample of 317 languages (Maddieson 1984), some languages contain no more than a dozen segmental phonemes (for the most part they are members of the Indo- Pacific and Austronesian language families), whereas a few languages are reported to have in excess of one hundred (members of the Khoisan family in southern Africa). The mean number of consonants per phonemic inventory is in the low twenties (22.8), that of vowels close to nine (8.7). In most languages, the total number of consonants is more than twice as large as the number of vowels. The most common consonantal subsystem includes from five to eleven plosives (stops), including affricates; one to four fricatives; two to four nasals; and four consonants of other types. The most common vowels are those classified as high front unrounded, high back rounded, mid front unrounded, mid back rounded, and low central unrounded. The inventory of segmental phonemes in English appears to be much like the systems characteristic of the bulk of the world’s languages. This is not to say, however, that English is a typical language. Although all natural languages are indeed distinct variations on a common theme—human language—each has its own peculiar features of structure that make it unique.
PROSODIC FEATURES
Vowels and consonants that combine into words and sentences may be thought of as seg- ments, or segmental units, that is, as discrete units that can be identified in the stream of speech and separated from other such units (as in part = p- a-r- t and slept = s- l-e- p-t). But there is more to speech than just ordering these segments according to the rules of a partic- ular language. Additional features are essential for an utterance to sound natural and to be fully meaningful, especially stress and pitch, these two sometimes lumped together under